I have to say … they could have sat in the middle of an empty room on barstools and stared at me for 50 mins and I would have been happy to see them. *grin* Okay, this is well and truly a ramble and completely unedited because I’m tired, so please forgive typos, etc.

I had some forewarning in the comments from my ramble with 5.14 that this episode, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, was switched in order with 5.14, MBV, by The Powers That Be. So, knowing that, I was prepared to not have anything close to closure or continuation from where we left them, Sam burning out the demon blood influence in the panic room, Dean hanging on by his fingernails and asking for just a little help…

It wasn’t a “to be continued” event, after all. It just leveled us and left us hurting. That’s all. So, perhaps it’s good that we saw the boys in action and were treated to a different kind of pain in this one. It was mytharc related, though as far as continuing the storyline of the apocalypse, it was a miniscule baby step.

Essentially, we learned this: the Horsemen (at least DEATH) know that Bobby is pivotal to the boys’ survival and strength and they want to take that stronghold away. And…Bobby’s wearing down. Honestly? It seems that the only one who isn’t soul-weary from this fight yet is Sam. I’ll explain what I mean in a minute.

With THEN, we’re reminded that we have WAR, FAMINE, and DEATH out amongst us. Or, rather, once amongst us. ‘Cause I’m not entirely sure if WAR and FAMINE are dead or not. But all we got about DEATH was that Lucifer called him up right before Dean shot him with the Colt and Cas whisked the boys away on silent angel wings. So, while we didn’t see DEATH, he was apparently running amuck in the little town of Sioux Falls, SD.

Incidentally, I spent the best day of the longest family vacation in the world in Sioux Falls. Two weeks, one pop-up camper, seven people…from the Badlands to Mount Rushmore, we did South Dakota, people. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home, movie set for Dances With Wolves, Wall Drug. We probably drove past “Singer Salvage” and I never knew it. *wink*

*ahem* Anyway. We’re also reminded of DALDOM where Bobby is trapped in his nightmare with his possessed wife that he was forced to kill. *sad*

It’s storming. Lightening, rain, thunder, the whole creepy bit. We’re in a graveyard, zeroing in on Clay James Thompson’s tombstone. Dude died in 2004, but that doesn’t stop him from clawing his way out through the mud and climbing free of his grave. Next thing you know, there’s a redneck in a Lay-Z-Boy watching the Discovery Channel who hears some scratching at his window that he finds weird.

Dude. It’s a thunderstorm. Hello. *shakes head*

We get the usual tension-building effects of opening the door to find nothing and then closing the door to have Mr. Creepy standing right there staring the redneck down. Mr. Creepy—aka Clay Thompson—goes for the redneck’s throat and as he bears him to the floor, the redneck kicking and screaming, we see a poster of a bunch of sports cars touting the phrase, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”

Guess he lost.

It’s daylight and the boys—dressed in suits so we know they’re on Official Business—are getting out of the Impala in front of a diner. Sam’s on the phone leaving what is apparently the zillionth message for Bobby.

Dean: He’s still not home? How far could he get in that chair?

It’s totally inappropriate, makes me grin, and completely exposes how worried Dean is about his friend and mentor. They decide to just…get it done, and sit down with their witness…guy. Dean addresses him as Mr. Wells to which the guy says they can call him Digger. *snerk* Dean wants to know who gave him that name. Well, turns out, Digger did.

Dean: You gave yourself your own nickname? You can’t do that!

People, this man cracks me up. He’s essentially undercover, trying to get people to believe he’s an F.B.I. Agent. And he’s giving them flack for nicknames. *LAUGHS* Don’t ever change, Dean. I mean it. Michael-in-a-Dean-suit would never have the character you do. Okay, sorry. Moving on.

Digger tells the boys that he saw Clay Thompson climb into Ben Sutton’s trailer. Clay walked out. Sutton didn’t. Digger is fully aware that Clay is dead; in fact, he tells them that Sutton killed Clay five years ago in a “hunting accident.” As they’re talking, a female sheriff walks into the diner on her cell phone, obviously talking to a kid, Owen.

Digger: Heads up. Fargo.

*Snicker*

The Sheriff, Jodi Mills, wants to know what’s up and the boys identify themselves as Agents Dorman (Dean) and Niedermyer (Sam). Now, usually I get the in-joke with the alias’, but this one stumped me. I know there’s a Hockey player named Niedermyer. Played (Plays?) for Anaheim, if I remember right. But I have no idea if that’s where they got that one and Dorfman? I got nothin’. So, if you’re more clever than I am (which won’t take much), help a gal out.

Sheriff Mills wants to talk to their supervisor, of course, so Sam confidently hands over a business card. Sheriff Mills calls and Agent Tom Willis (aka Bobby) answers. Only…um, she recognizes Bobby’s voice.

Well, duh, guys. You’re investigating a job in Bobby’s town.

She basically calls them on their “bullcrap,” says that Bobby’s a menace—been arrested for drunk and disorderliness and mail fraud—and tells them to go. Which they do. Right to Bobby’s. Looking incredibly indignant and not a little bit pissed, the boys confront Bobby and demand to know what he’s been doing.

Bobby: Playing murderball.

Dean: What’s that smell? Is that soap? Did you…clean?!

*BWAH!*

Bobby: What are you, my mother? Bite me.

Here’s the weird part about this scene—I mean, weirder than Bobby acting secretive and sketchy and evasive with the boys (especially Dean)—Bobby is hat. less. I KNOW! I think we’ve seen him without a hat like maybe, what? Twice? And one of those times he was unconscious and dreaming! With his hair all combed and his beard trimmed and that slightly rounded face, he looked like…my dad.

Bobby says he’s been working to find a way to, y’know, stop the devil and all, but has nothing to show for it. He deflects Sam’s queries about omens and lightening storms by saying it’s February. In South Dakota. During storm season. He says he’s sorry they wasted a tank of gas, buh-bye, don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out. *frowns*

So, they leave…only as they drive by the graveyard, Dean stops. Sam’s face is a total question mark. He’s all, “Bobby already checked out the graveyard.” Dean’s not buying it, wants to take a peek (Bobby has been wrong before, after all) and Sam can’t see a reason why not, so next thing you know, we have boys in the dark with flashlights. And, I know I’m a total geek, but it looked kinda cool. A bit like the old days of digging up graves and salt-n-burning bones.

Ah, memories.

Anyway, they find Clay Thompson’s grave with what is obviously fresh-turned earth, and start digging. Or, rather, Sam starts digging while Dean helpfully holds the flashlight. *giggle* As we knew they would, they find an empty coffin. Sam’s like, what. the. hell. And Dean declares that something stinks. You can say that again, boy-o.

They break into a house—and it took me until the people showed up to figure out that it was Clay’s house because it wasn’t a natural jump for me to go from graveyard to dead guy’s house, but whatever—and cover each other in this very cool back-and-forth motion with the flashlights. I was all about the flashlight play tonight for some reason.

About five seconds after they split up, Dean is jumped by DeadClay and in a weird flurry of confused confession, we find out that yes, he is DeadClay, yes, he killed Ben Sutton (but only because Sutton killed him you see) and that he doesn’t know exactly what he is… Clay’s wife (very much not dead) comes around the corner and the boys cover with their FBI persona’s and take Clay outside.

Dean pulls his gun and Sam stops him.

Dean: He’s a monster.

Sam: He’s a…soccer Dad.

I get that it’s confusing, but I gotta side with Dean on this one. I mean, yeah, DeadClay didn’t act like a brain-sucking monster, but still. He. Was. Dead. And walking around. And dead. With all the apocolyptic crap going on, soccer dad or no, when it comes to that kind of stuff? Unless they’re angels, I think Dean’s instinctual black/white approach trumps Sam’s shades of gray. However, they don’t get a chance to get into a debate about it because Sheriff Mills shows up and cuffs them.

Dean’s all, hey, this is the dead guy you said couldn’t have possible killed that guy. Sheriff Mills doesn’t care who he is or what he did; Dean can’t take him out and shoot him in the street (because that would be Very Wrong). Hilariously, DeadClay is indignant about how he was about to meet his 2nd demise and the boys are hauled away with understandably baffled expressions.

In the cell, they try to hash out what the hell is going on: Sheriff on the take? Zombies paying her off? Total aside: there’s a profile shot of Dean through the bars of the jail cell…he’s sitting, looking down, pensive expression on his face, then glances up through the bars toward the main room and…guh. Something about the lighting, his expression…it was just…very nice.

They see Bobby sitting in with Sheriff Mills and are even more confused. Bobby gets them out and says, yes, the Sheriff did hate him. Until 5 days ago. When the dead started rising all over town.

Sam: You knew about this?

Dean: I think what Sam meant was you lied to us?

That was the kicker in all of this for Dean, I think. Not what he eventually found out, but that Bobby hadn’t trusted them—trusted him—with it. I think that was what gutted him the most. Bobby was his last family outside of Sam. He needs to be trusted by Bobby. He needs to know that Bobby has faith in him—in both of them. Because otherwise, they’re truly alone. And I think Dean’s just enough afraid of his brother not riding the hard line that he’d think of it as him being alone and not them being alone.

Bobby emphasizes that there’s nothing there for them. For the guys. Dean’s like, um, hello? Zombies? Bobby says there’s zombies…and then there’s zombies. We head back to Singer Salvage where Dean and Sam gape in shock as a pretty, dead, blonde woman greets them with food (at 4am) and offers to get more plates.

It’s Karen. Bobby’s dead wife.

*is gutted*

Seriously, people, how incredibly difficult must it have been for Jim Beaver to perform in this episode. It’s obvious he used his personal history, and it radiated from him in emotion so raw I whimpered. But how drained must he have been? And how much had his heart ached? I hope The Powers That Be took that into consideration when they wrote this. I hope they at least…consulted him about what they were asking him to do. But maybe that’s not how it works in the entertainment industry. Maybe personal heartache is tucked away for the sake of the story, coming to light only if it helps to augment your craft.

*sigh*

Annnd…there’s pie. Which Dean totally enjoys. lsketch42 did you see? Dean. Ate. Pie.The boys sit at Bobby’s table with Bobby, smiling politely at DeadKaren until Bobby asks her to give them a minute and she steps out. In unison, the guys push their plates aside, crouch low over the table, and verbally pounce on Bobby.

Dean: Are you crazy?

Sam: What the hell?

Bobby: That’s my wife, so watch it.

Dean gives Bobby this look. A sickened, pained, irritated, disbelieving give me a break eyeroll that almost makes me forget that I’m not peeking through a window at the lives of three real men who are their own definition of family. I love how he's able to do that. They discuss how this is happening—Dean’s like zombie? Revenant? But Bobby doesn’t know because he cremated Karen. There was nothing left to crawl out of a grave. Apparently there are only 15-20 Living Dead (Bobby has a list).

Clay, Karen…and then Bobby hits me where I live. Sheriff Mills’ son Owen is on the list. A kid. Not only do we have to think about that poor women losing her son, but now that son is back—and what mother wouldn’t move Heaven and Earth to have their dead child returned to them—and you know it’s going to get ugly.

At this point, I was reminded of that ghost story, The Monkey’s Paw. Where the old couple gets a monkey’s paw from some miracle merchant and they wish for their son—who was killed in a war—to return. And suddenly they hear the sickening approach…a drag, thump, drag, thump, drag, thump. Their boy had returned, but not as their boy—he’d returned as the corpse he was. Just before the wife opens the door and lets the monster in, the husband wishes him away.

I know the people of the town didn't wish this--DEATH cursed each one of them. But they welcomed it (at first). What if what you want isn’t what you want? What if just one more day is one day too long?

Sam presses Bobby about omens and Bobby reluctantly confesses that there were the lightning storms. The boys throw their hands up in an exasperated Duh! That’s what we said! gesture. Bobby reads from Revelation and says that he thinks this is DEATH.

Dean: Awesome. Another Horsemen. Must be Thursday.

*BWAH!!!* Okay, that? Cracked me up. I know it was meant to, but so what. It worked. LOL!

Dean gets serious, leaning toward Bobby, determination and reluctance folding together in the line between his steady eyes. He tells Bobby that he knows what they’re going to have to do. Bobby, eyes wet and pleading, says that DeadKaren doesn’t remember anything—being possessed, Bobby killing her, coming back, any of it.

Dean looks pained and says, “Don’t, Bobby…”

Bobby looks so completely fragile in this moment—like the next breath he takes might shatter him. His speech almost did me in.

Bobby: She hums when she cooks. She always hummed when she cooked. Tone deaf as all get out. And I never thought that I would hear it again.

In his book, Jim Beaver referred to his wife as “his girl.” It was that same sort of tenderness, the way Bobby spoke about this character and the way Jim referred to his wife that caught me. As if they were his reason for allowing his heart to continue beating.

The boys exchange a look and Bobby continues saying that Revelations says the dead will rise during the apocalypse—it doesn’t say it’s a bad thing…

Dean leans forward—and I swear 2014Dean slipped across his features as he tears out Bobby’s heart with his words—and asks Bobby what would he do if he were them?

Bobby knows what he would do, and he knows what they think they gotta do.

Bobby: But I’m begging you…Please, leave her be.

*GUH!*

What a horrible situation. Not just the choice the boys have to make, but Bobby—a life-long hunter, the sage, the one who roughed Dean up with insults just to get him back on the road to going after his brother—reduced to begging them to let his dead wife live. Or, y’know what I mean. If that’s not evil at work, then I don’t know what is.

I can’t wait until they defeat the devil. I think there will always be bad things in their world—I think there will always be ghosts to fight and creatures to kill. But this sinister, slick, under-your-skin, into-your-heart, deceptive evil is making my soul hurt. I can’t wait until they end the twisted manipulation that is poisoning them and everything around them. That is eating away at bonds and strongholds like acid.

I want them to light it up, to crumble it. I want them to stand—perhaps bloody and bruise, but not beaten—and watch it disintegrate.

The boys take a break at Roy’s Diner (which, as I write this, I realize that they’ve now gone two nights without sleep…) and Dean says he can’t leave Bobby alone with DeadKaren, no matter what Bobby says. So Dean goes back to the junkyard and Sam…does some sleuthing. Dean’s leaning against the Impala, watching the back of Bobby’s house, looking incredible cool and toe-curlingly tough, says I, when DeadKaren appears from out of nowhere and scares the crap out of both of us.

She invites him inside. For pie.

Okay—another aside. Has anyone else besides thruterryseyes and myself seen the movie Ed and His Dead Mother? I know, it’s totally a bizarre title—and an even more bizarre movie with Steve Buscemi—but if you have, then you’ll know why the fact that DeadKaren baked 47 million pies and didn’t sleep was high-larious to me. Terry? Back me up on this.

Dean has a heart-to-non-beating-heart with DeadKaren and she tells him she knows what he is—a hunter. Dean, ever my hero, tells her that she knows he and Sam won’t let anything happen to Bobby. Karen does know this, actually, and she’s glad to have someone watch out for Bobby.

Then she confesses that she does actually remember—she remembers everything. The demon inside of her, what Bobby had to do, everything. Dean’s like, why don’t you tell him then? Karen goes out on a limb and says that Dean’s never been in love. She says Bobby’s her husband. Her job is to bring him peace, not pain. *rubs heart*

Meanwhile, Sam’s breaking into the house of “Ezra Jones.” There’s a blood trail, and open door, and a total mess inside. He sees an obviously sick and dying deadwoman lying on a bed and he hesitantly moves closer. She looks nasty – drooling, coughing, sores on her face. She beckons Sam closer and he mutters, “I’m gonna regret this.”

He leans in to hear what she’s trying to whisper…and just as I was bracing myself for her to do, she FREAKS OUT and launches at him, dropping him to the ground and drools this skanky white crap on his cheek. BBBLLLARRRGGHHH! It was gross, ya’ll. Sam holds her off and manages to pull out a gun and shoots her through the mouth (completely disgusting and disturbing, but an impressive camera angle/shot) and she drops down next to the rotting, half-eaten corpse of a man.

But here…I gotta wonder. Did lore go right out the window? ‘Cause in CSPWDT, all a headshot did to ZombieAngela was piss her off and send her chasing after Sam. They had to stake her to her coffin inside her grave. How come they were able to take these zombie’s out with headshots? Was it just because DEATH raised them from his own little Pet Cemetery? And if so, how did the guys know that? I’m going with it because it made for an entertaining climax, but seriously, if they can change up lore like that, those who have poked me for doing likewise in fanfic (i.e., wendigo poisoning in Ramble On) have nothing to stand on.

Bobby tells a rather angry Dean that “old lady Jones” was the first one to rise. Which means she was the first to turn and all the Living Dead were going to go bad. Dean says with conviction that they have to stop them. At which point Bobby shocks the hell out of the boys (and me) by pulling a gun. He says it’s time to go, get off his property. (Ouch.) He says that if DeadKaren turns, he’ll handle it his way. Dean says that this is dangerous and Bobby cocks his gun, saying he’s not going to tell them twice.

He would not have shot them. We know that. They know that. But the fact that he felt strongly enough about it to pull and cock his pistol had them leaving out of respect and protection of Bobby, not of them. This was foreign territory. Dean parks just outside of the junkyard and says basically that even though Bobby went “Full Metal Jacket” on his own family, he has to go back in there and kill DeadKaren (without being seen).

Sam: I’ll just go to town and…rescue everyone. Should be easy enough.

*snicker*

Dean tells him he has to get the Sheriff on his side—who, Sam says, is pretty pro-Zombie right now. Well, you know what that meant. My stomach turned a bit as I saw where that was going.

I find the whole Bobby/Dean/Sam situation interesting, though. When Bobby was possessed and said those awful things to Sam, Sam was devestated. And when Bobby came back to himself—even though he was paralyzed in a hospital bed—he made sure to reassure Sam that they were good. That Sam was good.

But it’s Dean that needs Bobby. Sam behaves like if Bobby wants to stay with his dead wife, let him. It’s his wife. You gotta understand why he’d want to be with her. Give him this time. Mr. Tenderheart.

Dean, though, sees through the emotion to the truth of the matter: Karen. Is. Dead. This is not right, it’s not real, it’s not natural. This will only hurt Bobby—physically, mentally, emotionally. And his family just pulled a gun on him. Again. When all he was doing was trying to help. Good Lord. And yet what does he do? Goes back. Because he can’t let anything happen to him. What did he tell Bobby in TCCODW?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but me and Sam, we don’t have much left. I can’t do this without you. I can’t.

Admittedly, at this moment, I had a knot in my chest. Dean goes back to the junkyard; Sam goes to town to find the Sheriff.

Sheriff Mills’ dead son is sick and hungry. She’s on the phone with the doc (and how weird would that conversation have been) and fixes the boy soup, which she asks her husband to take in. Well, you knew right then that this woman was about to have the worst day of her life. When she goes into the room and sees the copious amounts of blood, all I could think was the word UNFAIR.

To me, seeing that zombie child with blood on his face and empty eyes, his fingers clutching his father’s entrails wasn’t scary or creepy, it was totally unfair. Kids usually creep me out—Lilith, the ghosties in the Pilot, the changelings in The Kids Are Alright—but this was just…tragic. To have lost a son that age…and then to have him back for such a short time…only to lose him again so freaking horribly…my heart just hurts. I think I’ll go cuddle with Mo Chuisle for a bit after this.

Sam saves the Sheriff and she’s quite understandably shaken up. I liked, though, that they had her hold up under that insane amount of pressure. They had her suck it up and do her job and not fold in on herself and go catatonic. Sam, poor guy, has to go inside the house (which, incidentally, looks a lot like Mary Winchester’s house in WIAWSNB) and…put down…DeadOwen. The only safe place that the Sheriff can think of to gather the living townspeople is the jail. Makes sense.

Meanwhile, DeadKaren isn’t doing so well. She collapses and Bobby notices that she’s burning up, but she says she’s just hungry. Karen’s…demise…is handled with much more grace and appropriate emotion than Owen’s. Bobby has her lie down on his make-shift bed and she tells him she can feel herself changing. She wants him to kill her before she turns. He’s holding her hand, his eyes glistening, his face lined with grief, and says he can’t.

She tells him she remembers—everything. Being possessed, what he had to do. He says then she should understand why he can’t do it again. Karen reveals that when she rose, she saw DEATH—a gaunt, pale, skeletal figure. He had a message for her. Before we hear that message, though, we cut to Dean who is sneaking into Bobby’s house. He makes his way part-way down the back hall when he hears a shot.

He bellows Bobby’s name, and comes around the corner to see Karen dead—again—Bobby holding bother her hand and the gun. The sadness etched on Dean’s face in that moment—the I’m so, so sorry in his expression—was heartbreaking. In that moment you know Dean would have done anything he could to have spared Bobby this pain.

Sam is at the jail with Sheriff Mills handing out weapons and instructions. Some guy asks who he is and Sam puffs up a bit and replies the he’s a friend of Bobby Singers.

Guy: The town drunk?

Sam deflates a little and points to Digger: I thought he was the town drunk.

Guy: Who told you that?

Sam quirks his lips and averts his eyes: Bobby Singer.

It’s the perfect cover, though, if you think about it. If Bobby’s a drunk and a menace, people leave him alone and don’t wonder about the odd collection of cars or the people coming and going or the screams or the shots or… Yeah, makes me worry about Bobby’s level of alcohol consumption just a smidge, but it also has me admire him for his cover story.

Back at the junkyard, Dean is gearing up, loading up the van with weapons and ammo, offering Bobby the chance to sit this one out. They hear a dog barking and a crash and Dean takes a shotgun and investigates, leaving Bobby stuck in his chair at the van. While Sam and the Sheriff are loaded for bear at the jail with nothing happening, Dean and Bobby are suddenly fight off a ton of zombies.

What happened to 15-20 on a list? Where did all of these zombies come from? And did they all rise at once? Why were they all turning so quickly? *head spinning*

Bobby calls for Dean while shooting anything that moves. Dean gets jumped by a zombie—Clay?—and finally shoots him off. Bobby gets knocked out of his chair. Dean shoots the zombie off of him, then hauls Bobby back up in his chair and wheels him back to the house…where they realize they’re running low on ammo.

Bobby: Yeah, I’ve got some. If you go past all the zombies it’s in the van where we left it.

Dean: A simple ‘no’ would’ve been fine.

All the zombies are at the junkyard—we come to find out—because they’re after Bobby. There are dozens—climbing through the windows, coming at them like mindless drones. Dean wheels Bobby to a closet and hides in there with him. Bobby’s concerned about the tight fit and getting caught in there.

Dean: They’re idiots. They can’t pick a lock.

The handle turns.

Bobby: Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?

Dean: I’m making this up as I go. Sue me.

Ah…there’s my Han Solo-esque line! LOL!

The zombies get the door open and Dean starts whaling on them using his shotgun as a club. He’s desperately beating them back when suddenly he hears Sam bellow, “GET DOWN!”

And it’s the O.K. Corral with Sheriff Mills and Sam blasting every last head from every last zombie. Whew!

Next day, Sam’s keeping watch over a mass funeral pyre when Sheriff Mills and Dean return to say they can’t find any more zombies. The townspeople are traumatized and Sheriff Mills can’t even answer Sam’s “How you holding up” question. Can’t blame her. The woman should be thrashed. I can’t even think about the story they wrote for her too long without frowning. Sam says the pyre has all the zombies (and what a gross mess Bobby’s place must’ve been) except one.

Back at Singer Salvage, Bobby’s cremating his wife’s body. Again. He says to the boys that he guesses he should probably apologize.

Dean says that he doesn’t know much about love and all, but at least Bobby got to spend five days with her, right? Oh, that hit me in the gut. It’s exactly the wrong thing to say, and yet it’s the only thing you can think of. It’s like when people try to comfort a woman who’s had a miscarriage by saying that maybe it was for the best—the baby wasn’t supposed to have been born, so this was meant to be. They mean well; they’re trying to empathize and be reassuring. But what they don’t get is that they just hollowed you out and minimized the crushing grief that you feel at the loss.

Bobby’s reply of, “Which makes things 1,000 times worse,” made me tear up. “She was the love of my life. How many times do I gotta kill her?”

Oh, Bobby. It’s so much to take. Do we really ever know what we want? It’s like…being granted a wish for lots of money only to be told that your grandfather just died so that you could inherit it. Dean’s What’s dead should stay dead is poignantly true here. There’s only so many losses a soul can take. If you survive that kind of goodbye once, you shouldn't have to again.

He tells the boys that DEATH had a message: he was after Bobby. Because he has been helping the boys. Because he’s their last stronghold. He wants Bobby out of the way. Dean looks staggered and angry. Like he can’t breathe and wants to kill someone at the same time.

Sam just looks like a little kid. “But, you’re going to be alright, right, Bobby?”

Bobby just looks at Sam and says nothing. And I have a very bad feeling about this. I ended my speculations last season with one that I didn’t think Bobby would make it through this season. I thought the Big Bad would kill him off because that would be the last straw—that would make the boys give in, give up, give over.

But I think that if evil takes one more thing from these boys they’re going to unleash a vengeance neither one knows they’re capable of. I want that to happen anyway—without sacrificing Bobby—but I think that if they take Bobby from them (and us) they are going to reap the whirlwind.

Oh, this show. These guys. It wasn’t even that pivotal of an episode, really, and I’m worn out. I’m almost feel the exhaustion, the thinning of the walls I see in Dean. He’s outright said it: he’s done. He’s fighting this good fight because that’s who he is, but when it’s over, if he’s got nothing left, well, so be it. I see now the same is true of Bobby.

Sam, though, he still has something to prove. He doesn’t feel weary to me. He feels like he’s still has some fire. Even after the demon blood and the panic room (which, since this is kinda out of order, maybe next episode I won't feel the fire from Sam anymore...). I think he needs to siphon some off and infuse his brother with it. I want Dean to light up and kick some ass. I want there to be a way for them to figure out how to get ahead of this evil, to gain an upper hand. A way that’s NOT saying ‘yes’ to an angel.

Because I think in this case, fire would heal some of the cracks and fissures we can see in Dean’s soul and Sam’s heart. They just need a welder.

I missed previews—the hubs had a soccer game to watch—but isn’t next week the big 100th episode? I am, proudly, still spoiler free, but I did remember that was coming up. Just wasn’t sure exactly when ETA: Nevermind. I stand corrected. Looks like they don't hit the centennial mark until April 15th. Carry on!